The Folk Art Convention/Transcript
WORK IN PROGRESS; NEEDS HUMAN REVIEW Bernice thought it would be nice to have a concrete bench somewhere in our yard. Not here, you know, but somewhere. So now she's decided she wants it on the other side of the house. That's where the sun is. I'm not quite sure how sunlight affects concrete. Maybe if we water it, it'll grow into a building. So now my challenge is to find a way to move it without spending money or straining everything I care about. Now, I could ask my friends to help, but they're going to want a payback someday. So instead I'm just going to use my extension ladder and this power rv jack. These things go up and down at a moment's notice. Those were the good ol' days. I mounted the control for the power jack inside so I can raise and lower the back end of the car, kind of a high-jacking. I attached my extension ladder to the top of the car with the adjusting rope hanging down through the sunroof. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've been called to the bench. [ applause ] [ audience cheering ] okay. Easy now. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Big, big, big week up at the lodge this week. They're having a folk art convention down at the community centre. See this? This is called folk art. Actually, this is a chunk of wood that fell out of a tree into a lake somewhere, got bashed around by the waves and got washed up on shore. It was picked up by some old hippy on his way home from a joan baez concert. He throws 29 cents worth of urethane on it, sells it at the flea market for $79.95. So I'm thinking, hey, this is a rip-off, and we're not in on it! Uncle red! I found this in my bed and now my bed is all soaking wet. Oh, sure, blame it on the driftwood. Come on, my room stinks now like the bilge in stinky peterson's boat. Oh, sure, blame it on the driftwood. That's art, harold. This is not art. I know art. I got a b+ is art. This is not art. This is a piece of grungy firewood. And judging by it's oily coating, I'd judge it's out of possum lake. Yes, all right, fine. But once we dry out and varnish it, harold, it's going to be worth a small fortune at the folk art convention. Well, I agree with the small part. See this, harold? People pay real money for crap like this. Yeah, well that's a nice piece of driftwood. This is a chunk off of somebody's dock. You know, harold, if everybody had your attitude there'd by no singing fish, no black velvet paintings, no "I'm with stupid" t-shirts. Is that the kind of world you want to live in? Oh, yes. Just take the driftwood to your room and let it dry, will you? What is the problem with you? You know, I'm not putting it back in my room. I'm just going to leave it right here in the stove. Possum lake water doesn't dry very easily. [ applause ] it's time for the possum lodge word game! [ cheers and applause ] tonight's winner receives a one-year, unlimited movie movie rental pass from vern's video castle. Some conditions apply... "winner must be over 18. "rentals are for two hours only. "no weekend or holiday rentals. "excludes new releases, recent releases "or anything with michael caine." all right, ed, cover your ears. Red, you've got 30 seconds to get ed frid to say this word... All right, winston. And go! Okay, ed, if your tv reception is real bad, you can't see what's going on, it's... 'cause I don't pay for the dirty movies. Okay, no, um. Say you don't shave for a couple of days, then you look... Incredibly macho. No. All right, take a look at my beard. You would say it's a little... Gay? Uh... All right, no. No. Okay, you have a kitten. A kitten is warm and... Dangerous. No, I'm talking about any animal with soft fur is... Dangerous. Ed, not all animals are dangerous. Sure, red. What about a chipmunk? Almost out of time here, red. Okay, okay, I know. Something "wuzzy" was a bear, okay? Come on, it was a nursery rhyme. I can't remember that far back. Ever since the raccoon in the sleeping bag incident, you know, my memories of childhood have been pretty fuzzy. There we go! Where has all the fun gone? Where has all the joy gone? ♪ where have all the flowers gone? ♪ I don't know. What I know is that all the hobbies have gone to harold's hobby house, where we examine the man behind the hobby. In tonight's case, the man below the hobby -- would you mind standing up, glen? It never ends with you, does it, harold? Today's guest is mr. Glen braxton, of the braxton marina, which -- well, that is when it's open of course, which I believe is every third Tuesday of the month without a full moon. That's correct. Today, I'd like glen to explain the connection between his inner soul and his hobby. Glen. It's a slot car set, harold. Interesting... But what does a slot car set say to you? Well, I don't know, I can't hear it over that shirt. I'm just trying to prove a point that there's a connection, a correlation between a man and his hobby, a reflection, sort of. Well, not this hobby, no. It's an old slot car set I got when I was a kid. It goes around and around in circles, and it's old and it's slow and the circuits are burned out. I mean, it's nothing like me at all. Of course not, no. I'm just saying that, you know, well, maybe you could just tell us a bit about the cars. Maybe their make and their model. Okay, well, that's referred to as the green one. That'd be the yellow one, that one there. And specifically what is it that you like about slot cars? Oh, well, actually, I control them both so, you know, I never lose, which is good. And I like that electrical smell that you can smell. Yeah, yeah. And I like that you don't have to steer them. You just let 'em go. Just let 'em go. That's it. That's it. That's it. The letting go. What? Yeah, you like to let things go, your person. I don't have a person, I have a bouvier. I let her go wherever it wants, actually. I have proven my point. What? A man in a rut. A car in a slot. A lifetime of letting things go. A psychological connection between a man and his hobby. Thank you, glen. So we're done then? I'm letting you go. Okay. [ applause ] you know, there's a lot of talk these days about gas mileage and engine efficiency and all that crap. If you ask me, the best way to save gas on a trip is to not go. But of course, if you're married, you have to go. So what you need is a way to make trips fun. Rather than focus on miles per gallon, think about gallons per hour. 'cause to me, burning a lot of gas for a few minutes has got to be the same as burning a little bit of gas for a whole hour. Now, this is a carburetor. It controls how much gas goes into the engine. We're going to increase the capacity a little on this unit. Okay, when you look inside a carburetor, you'll see an open area here where the gas and air mix and there's the reservoir which is a small tank with a float in it that opens a valve and lets the gas flow. Does that remind you of something? The toilet drain's a little large for the intake manifold, but these toilet gaskets are pretty flexible. Made out of beeswax. They're really easy to work with... If you're a bee. I had to increase the size of the gas line to my new porcelain carburetor. So I went with 3/4" copper. My wife always says, go with the flow. I will. Now, to control the whole unit, I ran a piece of wire from the flush handle down through the firewall, hooked it onto the top edge of my gas pedal. So if you find she's idling too fast, just jiggle the handle. Pretty sharp looking, isn't it? I call it a kybo charger. I just hooked up the fuel pump and I'm waiting for the tank to fill up. Okay, they say the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Maybe that's not the best analogy. Hey, wait a minute, this is a man's car. So remember, if women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy. And they'll find me gone. I read in the paper about a company whose stock price just plunged lower than pamela anderson's neckline. They may even go bust. Well, naturally, people are pretty ticked off but this spokesman guy said it was merely a necessary, temporary market adjustment. This is called p.R. If you're a shareholder, it's called b.S. Personally, I call it genius. All of us middle-aged, married guys need a crash course in this kind of public relations. Think about it. Your wife catches you asleep instead of mowing the lawn. That's not a nap, that's a personal rejuvenation efficiency enhancement. Got nailed eyeing another woman in the supermarket? You were merely engaged in benign comparative product appraisal. Used your wife's best china bowl as an ashtray at your poker game? Sounds like value-added asset re-purposing to me. So let's all give this p.R. Business some serious thought. You didn't put the dishwasher back together wrong, you restructured it. You didn't break the lamp, you downsized it. And if you're really in trouble, go for the ultimate public relations ploy... Honey, I'm an idiot. No woman can argue with that. Remember, I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together. If your septics used to remind you of a field of dreams but now it's more like reservoir dogs, a river runs through it or I know what you did last summer... Call me. [ chuckling ] we're close to being ready for the folk art convention. This is going to be huge. Is that beautiful or what, huh, huh? Who wouldn't want one of these, eh? And you'll never guess what it's made out of. Uncle red? How come all the lodge vehicles are missing their tires? Tires are a dime a dozen, harold. We've turned them into something a little more valuable. A big, ugly eraser? It's a pony, harold. It's a pony. A rubber pony with 100,000 miles on it. Harold, this is art. In fact, it's steel-belted art. You know what your problem is, harold? You don't have the class or sophistication to appreciate highbrow art. People love these, harold. You know what they do? You know what they do? They stick 'em on their lawn, and they look like... A fat lady bending over? Now, is this your work, or was it submitted by the group of seven? We're going to mass produce these, harold. I stack up the plywood, cut them all at once with the chain saw, then I take them down to the day camp and get the kids to paint them. They love them, harold. And you know what? They need to know about capitalism. Yeah, I think you need to know about child labour laws. C'mon, I cut them in for a piece of the action, harold. Now, c'mon, the folk art convention starts in a few minutes and I need some help getting these down there. I've got 200 ponies. I got 500 fat ladies. I hope that's enough. Oh, I think you're safe. Red voiceover: The boys decided to have an atv race. First prize is 25 gallons worth of gas, which went up in value every minute. Bill, you're on the wrong side of the start line. You might want to do one of your patented 174-point turns. Oh, man, oh. Are you going to be long? Okay, and dalton was the third participant. He's on like a riding mower. Guys, the race started. Do you want to get involved with that? Of course, they got the much faster -- it takes them about two seconds to blow by dalton. They get going so fast they didn't notice that the track actually has a turn in it. On the other hand, dalton was well aware of where he was going, so he could just keep poking along. Get on it, boys. But we're dealing again with the powerful machines. It doesn't take long to catch up to him, and they got him right at the mogul there, and they hit it good, maybe a little too good. Yeah, that's unfortunate. And away we go, again. Now, here again... I think there's a left-hand turn -- a left-hand turn -- guys, it's a left-hand turn. Oh boy. Oh, okay. That's bill. I guess winston went right through on his -- yeah, he did, there he is. He's back. And bill -- oh, oww. All right, bill thought he'd try fencing. Yeah, there you go. And this time they're getting pretty close to the finish line. They blow past dalton again, no problem. But then the machine -- I'm getting a little bored of this at this point. But their machine's still acting up, and bill can't figure out -- and then winston looks and there's the problem, you're about out of gas there. And then winston starts doing -- he's actually got less gas in his. The thing is, can they make it to the finish line? They try humping and bumping and humping along. And bill decided he's going to try and move the finish line up. Well, that's just not acceptable. So then, winston's going to grab some of first prize so they can finish the race, and then there's an argument and dalton wins the whole deal. [ applause ] isn't it funny how you can have a document like a gas bill or a speeding ticket or an eviction notice and it's sitting right here for weeks, but as soon as you go to get it, it's fallen down behind the fridge. And I'm talking about a real heavy fridge that's been sitting there since the delivery guy brought it, which is back in the days when they had delivery guys. What you need is a way to roll your fridge out easily whenever you need to. Okay, now sure, they sell those special appliance rollers, but they cost like ten bucks. And what is the point of fixing the fridge if you can't afford to buy anything to put into it? Okay, this gives me an idea. Actually lots of ideas. Okay, let's take these beer bottles -- no, no, let's empty these beer bottles -- no, let's get some empty beer bottles. You know, we have some immature vandals around here who spend the odd Saturday night winging beer bottles at this vacant building. Shows you how low people can sink when they don't have cable. Nobody knows exactly who the guys are but people have their suspicions. Hey, there's my glove. But no, I mean, well -- oh no, I guess I'm innocent after all. The good news is I'm going to use this old window frame and a few empties to free up my fridge. See what I've done here? Hello, dolly. This baby'll let me roll out the fridge anytime I want. Problem solved. And what did it cost me... Nothing. [ crash ] the word, "pneumonia" should have a silent "p" in it. Your back yard shouldn't. The folk art convention ended early. We had some damage but luckily it wasn't a big turnout, so neither of the customers was hurt. It's not over till the fat lady burns. You know, those kids at the day camp should never have used oil paint. Don't blame the kids! It was your tire ponies! It wasn't my tire ponies, it was the planning committee. Our display should have been a lot closer to the exit... And a lot farther from edgar's homemade fireworks booth. And edgar's homemade fireworks booth should have been a lot farther from the smoking lounge. Yeah, well, we got the fireworks under control, but the tire fire was another story. Oh, there was a lot of damage. The lady with the dog-hair mitts, she lost half her inventory. You see those macrame wall hangings? They went like pinwheels. And that lady who had the 375 little candles like that, you know, like that, like that? Now, now... One big one. Actually, we would have lost the whole community centre if it wasn't for my collection of 500 bent over fat ladies. Yeah, everybody grabbed them and tried to smother the fire with them. Then once the fire was out, they used them to board up the windows. I was real proud of that. Yeah, and all these women came in and helped everybody out. Well, actually, they saw all the fat ladies up against the wall and thought it was a weight watchers meeting. [ possum squealing ] oh, speaking of meetings... Yup, you go ahead, harold. I'll be right down, okay. So if my wife is watching, I'll be coming straight home after the meeting and I've given up on being an artist. I'm now going to be an art collector. So you come out into the driveway and I'll let you see my "van go." to the rest of you, thanks for watching. On behalf of myself, harold and the whole gang out here at possum lodge, keep your stick on the ice. [ cheers and applause ] everybody sit down. Sit down. Everybody, sit down. C'mon, sit down, you guys. You got to sit down. All rise. Quando omni flunkus moritati. Red: Sit down. Bow your heads for the man's prayer. I'm a man, but I can change, if I have to... I guess. All right, men, I've got some good news for you. I know we lost a bundle on the folk art convention, but I was talking to people from the canada council, and I told them that we're not going to do that anymore, so they're going to cover all our expenses. And as far as they can remember, it's the first time they've ever paid an artist to stop. Closed captioning performed by intercaption canada www.Intercaption.Com